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“Hey girlie.” Childe walks up to the campsite, where Lumine is miming roasting marshmallows over a pile of twigs and leaves. Beside her, Paimon rests on a fallen trunk, kicking her feet. “Want to help me with this firewood?”
Lumine glances up, as casually as she can manage. Her eyes land on the logs under Childe’s arm, carefully ignoring his unbuttoned shirt. “Yup. Looks like wood.”
He rolls his eyes to the noonday sun, setting down the pile before the fire. “Very funny. I guess I’ll go back into the woods, and labor away alone. Hope I don’t pass out from heat exhaustion.”
“If you do, try to land in the water so you cool down.”
“So you drown?!”
She makes a face, chin on her hand, looking over to him with a wrinkled nose. “Would you? Really? It’s only like 50 feet in the deep end.”
From his squat, Childe laughs, trying to pull his shirt over his head.
Lumine’s cheeks turn a very interesting shade of crimson.
He gets stuck around his elbows, biceps bulging to try and get them off. “Lumi, I’m flattered that you think-”
While the shirt’s blocking his vision, Lumine drinks in the open-legged view.
“-I could handle that,” he says, tugging the shirt the rest of the way off with a big grin. His hair is sticking straight up in the back.
Lumine bites her lip, glancing away to look out over Paimon’s head.
“But unfortunately I’m only human,” he teases, eyes catching the light and reflecting it back towards her.
“Oh well,” Lumine says, uncrossing her ankles, leaning back. “And here I thought I could get a mermaid boyfriend for the summer.”
“You want that? I can do mermaid, merman, I can order a costume here for the evening,” he says, standing.
She sticks her tongue out at him, lolling her head over.
He rolls his eyes, turning away. “Alright, I’m off to go join the bugs in the death of the woods.”
“Don’t be long,” she calls. “Or I’ll eat all the grapes.”
“He even gave you grapes?!”
“I’ll be honest,” Paimon says, hand on her chin, kicking her legs over the side of the log. “I was only looking at his tits.”
“I can hear you,” Childe calls over his shoulder.
Lumine wolf-whistles, earning a jovial grin over the ginger’s shoulder. “Hurry into the shade,” she calls.
Childe jogs into the forest.
“They were so big,” Lumine says, her head whipping around.
“Like watermelons. Water…melon…you know Itto called me a lavender melon?!”
Lumine’s teeth clack together. Paimon was diagnosed with achondroplasia as a baby. The two of them grew up side by side for years. When Paimon had to sit out of the more reckless sports in gym class, Lumine was often sitting beside her with some broken bone, or brutal sunburn, or other injury.
“I can’t laugh at this,” Lumine says, her voice taut.
“Yes, you can, I brought it up. Laugh!” Paimon snatches up the marshmallow stick, pointing it threateningly. “Laugh or you’re ablesit!”
Lumine snickers, standing to stretch. “Come on Miss Lavender, off to the water.”
“Lumine?”
“Hm?”
Paimon blinks up at her, suddenly quite worried over her friend. “You know Lavender and Lavender melons aren’t the same thing, right?”
Lumine is still pouting by the time they make it to the water. “Does your boyfriend know they’re not the same?”
“My boyfriend is too busy with his cows to have any thoughts.”
Lumine wasn’t expecting the sentence to end there, and she bursts out laughing. “Paimon, you’re killing me.”
“Try to last until tomorrow.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Murder at Cider Lake,” Paimon narrates, holding her hands in front of her like a tv screen. “Locals report spotting the most beautiful woman in the world, brutally stabbing her bestest friend ever after too many ‘that’s what she said’ and ‘yo mama’ jokes.”
“Yo mama so tired she tried to stay awake during your news report but fell asleep when you started talking.”
Paimon looks to Lumine with pure murder in her eyes.
“If we put Childe in the carrots, can we grow more water?”
Paimon looks to Lumine, whose face is flushed red, her jaw dropped. “Are you okay?”
“I think I’m too warm.” Lumine whines, sinking into the water. “It’ssocold, it’ssocold, it’ssocoldsocoldcoldcoldcoldcold, ahh, it feels so nice.”
Paimon watches this spectacle with all the outward enthusiasm of a patron saint. Inside, she’s ecstatic to be here. “I love you and all, but you’re more dramatic than the resident theatre kid.”
“Venti?” Lumine turns around to see Paimon pointing in the direction of Childe, who’s off by the campfire setting down logs. “Oh, got it.”
Childe splashes into the reeds, frogs leaping in every other direction as he bellyflops into the water.
“Throw him in a net,” Paimon deadpans.
“I’ve already caught him,” Lumine jokes, holding her hands out for when Childe finally makes it over to them.
He pops up from the water, all smiles. “I got us firewood.”
“Where did you get firewood from?” Paimon is shocked. “We’re in the middle of the woods, it’s not like there’s anyone around.”
Childe grins, hands on Lumine’s waist, holding her in the water so she doesn’t have to tread. “Look behind you,” he says to Paimon.
Next all they hear is happy shrieking, and Itto screaming, “CANNONBALL!”
“You guys didn’t have to do all of this,” Childe insists.
Lumine pops a birthday hat on his head, careful not to include the strap when they’re in the water. “Of course we did. It’s your birthday,” she says, grabbing his chin to give his face a little shake, “and you deserve to have a good day.”
He could kiss her right now, but of course, they have company. He melts.
Shinobu has her legs in the water, Yanfei splashing beside her. The two are absolutely covered in popsicle juice.
Same with Paimon, who’s in the water on Itto’s shoulders. He’s grinning wide. “Aw come on man, we weren’t going to miss this for the world! It’s your birthday! And you’re always good to us, so let us return the favor! Sorry we’re late though, we needed some help getting out of trouble.”
“How did you get in?” Childe looks to them, amused.
“Well, I was taking out those stupid bars that they put on every bench in the city. You know, the ones that keep the homeless out? I’ve been homeless, and nobody in their right mind has a right to be doing that to people. But anyways, I dressed up in a construction outfit and nobody even noticed me until some asshat found me peeing on the building, and I accidentally admitted who I was and that I wasn’t a construction worker, and then I got in trouble.”
Shinobu giggles. “It’s fine. Jean just passed a law against the homeless bars, and I got him out of trouble with the public peeing.”
“I need to hire you more often,” Childe says.
“Hey! You’re my best client, besides Hu Tao!” Yanfei springs up. “I was trying to mess with Itto for the day, since it gets us both good money. But I was paid heavily to let him off the hook.”
“I didn’t send anything.” Childe’s brow furrows. “Who helped out?”
The water behind him explodes as someone, who came from the campfire side of the beach behind Childe, leaps in.
Diluc wraps both arms around Childe, squeezing him close. “Happy birthday, dear.”
“Red!! What are you doing out here?”
Diluc meets his eyes with a mischievous flare in his own. “Business trip? Did you believe that?”
“Yes! Contracts are an important business dealing.”
“I’m not so poor that I need to care,” Diluc jokes, pressing kisses all along Childe’s cheek.
Childe rolls his eyes. He may be doing well for himself, but even he isn’t quite at the tycoon’s level. “So you paid off Yanfei, and Jean, and got Itto out of trouble?”
“I told the board that they could pass the law, and I would pay my taxes on time. Or they could refuse, and that bridge no one uses that my family technically owns could lift up, letting in all of the ocean liners.”
“You would destroy the ecosystem doing that.”
“And then lowering onto them.”
“An international conflict.”
Diluc grins at his lover, tugging him ever closer. “I’m terribly sorry, would that be messing with Snezhnaya a little too much?”
“No, please, screw them over as much as you want. Go give your girlfriend kiss before she kills us both.”
Diluc releases Childe with one arm, dragging Lumine over as she giggles, to press kisses to her ear and head while she squirms.
“I don’t know how to eat a popsicle in the water,” Childe says. “How do I not get it everywhere?”
“You don’t worry about it,” Diluc says, resting one arm on the rocks leading into the water. He has Childe resting on one leg, the other braced on the boulders.
“Get it everywhere and let me lick it off,” Lumine teases, still not quite over how filled out he’s gotten.
Shinobu snorts a laugh, overhearing, while Yanfei rattles on about her day to day tasks.
Itto and Paimon are discussing the intricacies of a beetle they found on one of the reeds.
Childe only just returned from Snezhnaya a short while ago, finally escaping that hell hole. Lumine had expected him to be too thin, lost under the weight of the stress.
But Diluc’s been working hard to bulk the man up, ordering him meals to show up at his house at all hours.
Now he has boobs Lumine wants to stick her face into.
And of course, Diluc prepared for coming out today. His ponytail is as high as Itto, skin covered in about twenty layers of the highest SPF sunscreen he can get his hands on. Stuff that biologists use, that won’t hurt the water.
And he’s wearing a necklace, with that same red stone he wears as a charm set in the middle.
“Oh, these are for you guys,” Childe says, pulling from his bag a bundle of whistles.
"Sweet!" Itto reaches right out, taking the pink one. He blows on it hard.
“Those are for emergencies,” Lumine reminds everyone, laughing.
Childe passes them out to everyone. “So if anyone gets lost, do what Itto did. We need to be able to find you. Same with getting hurt.”
“Got it. Thanks man,” Itto says, grinning.
“No problem. I want to make sure everyone has fun. No dying.”
Lumine stretches out against her tree trunk, fingers dancing over Childe’s back.
Yanfei and Shinobu are discussing their map, trying to figure out which rock outcrops they want to visit.
Itto and Paimon are exhausted from the heat, both of them sleeping under the umbrella set up over the camp.
Diluc has an arm around Childe still, though it’s way too hot to press their bodies anywhere near each other. “The sun will be down soon.”
“We have one more surprise,” Lumine says, unable to keep from giving Childe something to forward to.
“I can’t wait,” he says, stretching his legs out. He can still taste the popsicles they gorged on, and he’s damp from the lake. He had bought the firewood from a remote cabin he found in the woods, so he wasn’t actually too tired from ‘gathering’ it. And in his bag is hidden a container of honey, and some canned peppers, and the spiciest sauce he could buy from the guy. All to enjoy with Diluc and Lumine alone, later.
For once, he feels loved.
When the skies have turned the same shade as Childe’s eyes, Lumine says so, stretched across his lap.
She’s barely cooled down, but there’s a hefty breeze tonight coming off of the lake.
Diluc is beside them, one arm still around Childe’s waist, one hand stroking Lumine’s legs. “How are you two so soft?”
“Moisturizer.”
“Blood.”
He chuckles. “I’ll have to remember that.”
They both look right to him.
“You have the smoothest skin I’ve ever seen,” Lumine says.
“It’s like a dolphin,” Childe says, running his hand down Diluc’s neck.
The redhead’s brows rise, his blush overtaking his face. “Itto is waving.”
“Haii!!” Lumine throws an arm up to wave at Itto. He’s taken the lesbians and Paimon, Miss Pan, out on a boat into the water. The four of them are eagerly discussing their next plans.
“So what’s this surprise? You all seem very excited.”
The lamp on the boat is shut off by Paimon, obscuring their vision.
“We got a show for you,” Lumine says.
Diluc grins. “Do you like fireworks?”
“I love fireworks – you didn’t.”
And then there’s a loud pop, and something flies through the air above them, exploding into bright colors. A brilliant green, to open up the show.
The next is red, and in the shape of a pig.
Then blue sparks, firing off all over the sky.
Then a big one, taller than the rest, which everyone follows with their eyes, leaning back. Childe pulls Lumine down between his legs so she can see easier.
The firework explodes before them, larger than the rest.
Tiny ones open between it, as gold rains down. White ones, and red ones, and then the sky clears for one moment.
Out on the water, Itto is whooping, and Paimon is cheering, Yanfei and Shinobu exploding with happy shouts.
Itto sets off the next wave, which shoots out from the boat across the water.
“OH SHIT!”
Paimon says something loud, but which they can’t quite hear.
“Oh my god,” Diluc says.
“It’s fine,” Childe says. “We’ll get it tomorrow.”
“The capsules are all made to float,” Diluc says. “Thank fuck I planned ahead.”
The next wave of fireworks hits their shot, and then the ladies are shooting off Roman Candles all at once. Then more fireworks.
“We do have sparklers,” Diluc adds. “We can them out on another boat in a bit.”
Childe doesn’t answer.
Lumine turns around, peering up to his face. Diluc leans forward to see the same.
Childe’s crying, wiping away the tears, smiling. “You guys,” he starts, at a loss for how to explain how he’s feeling.
He presses a kiss to Lumine’s lips, warm and full of salt. Then grabs Diluc by the head and presses a kiss to his lips too, rough and swollen.
“Thank you so much.”
“Happy birthday,” Lumine says, ruffling his hair.
“Happy birthday,” Diluc says, fervently pecking his salty cheek.
Childe looks out again at the water, at the sparklers his friends have in hand.
He’s been an adult for awhile, and he’s been trying to save his life for longer. But damn.
He’s finally glad to be here.
And it’s such a new feeling he isn’t sure what to do with it.
He wraps an arm around Lumine, tugging her close to his chest. And puts his hand into Diluc’s, tugging the man around them as well.
“I’m happy I’m here,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut as more tears fall into Lumine’s hair. “I’m so, fucking happy I made it here.”